For any brand looking to reach European travellers as they search and book a trip, or spend while in-destination, these insights are intended to inform the targeting strategies and campaign activities to reach the right audience at the right moment—when they’re ready to engage.

1. 2016 Europe
Travel Trends Report

2. 2
One-third of worldwide travellers
report1
they’ll spend more on travel in
2016 than the year previous. Of those
big spenders, Europeans dominate
the list, with Switzerland, the United
Kingdom, Austria, Germany, and
France all making the top 10.
For any brand looking to reach European travellers as they
search and book a trip, or spend while in-destination, these
insights are intended to inform the targeting strategies and
campaign activities to reach the right audience at the right
moment—when they’re ready to engage.
Our report looks at more than one billion travel intent
signals from January 2015 through June 2016 in order
to understand the behaviour of European travellers,
including:
• Most popular travel spots and shifts in popularity;
• Top emerging and declining markets;
• Travel planning and search behaviour by country; and
• Average trip duration across Europe.
Read on to understand the latest European travel trends
and plan your most effective marketing campaigns yet.
1 TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer: Travel Trends 2016

3. 3
Europe Timing: Trip Duration Search
TRIP DURATION SEARCHED BY COUNTRYEuropean travellers are highly diverse, and individual countries demonstrate
significant variability in their travel planning behaviour. This is evident from
looking at their trip duration.
For example, people in Greece search for travel lasting an average of 5.4 days.
In the Netherlands, travel planners look for longer-than-average trips, at just
over a week, 8.7 days.
Hotel marketers might consider tailoring
upsell offers around trip duration propensity by
country—a ‘6th night free’ deal might go further
when targeted to Greek travellers vs. those
coming from the Netherlands.
Rank
Who searches for the
shortest trips?
Who searches for the
longest trips?
1 Monaco Armenia
2 Guernsey Netherlands
3 Isle of Man Russia
4 Faroe Islands Germany
5 Greece Belarus
For full list, see Appendix
AVERAGE TRIP DURATION
7 days

4. 4
Europe Timing: Lead Times Search
LEAD TIME SEARCHED BY COUNTRYPlacing ads in front of in-market travellers requires you to first know how far
in advance they’re looking. The average planning lead time for Europe as a
whole is 73 days.
However, it’s not enough to plan campaigns around the continental average.
If your marketing campaigns target this average alone, you’d miss some
audiences and be too early to effectively reach others.
Lead times in Germany and France differ by
nearly two weeks.
The fact is that Germans are one of Europe’s earliest travel planners with a lead
time of 80 days. France has a shorter pre-travel planning time of 67 days. These
differences demonstrate that marketers looking to reach European travellers
with the right message at the right time should work with data-driven partners
who can accurately target based on planning behaviours compared with the
actual date of travel.
Rank Who searches the earliest? Who searches the latest?
1 Ireland Kosovo
2 United Kingdom Azerbaijan
3 Iceland Albania
4 Faroe Islands Montenegro
5 Germany Armenia
For full list, see Appendix
AVERAGE LEAD TIME
73 days

5. 5
-2
+2
+3
Popular Searched Destinations for Europe: 2015 to 2016
European travel to major tourist destinations in Spain, Italy, the UK, Greece, and Portugal remain strong. The US and Canada are both top destinations that have seen an
incremental lift in 2016—with strong economies and ties to Europe, they’re growing in popularity.
Given the economic and political unrest in Russia, Turkey, and Egypt, it’s no surprise to see declining interest for Europeans. In the meantime, warm-weather destinations
like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Croatia, and New Zealand are picking up travellers.
TOP EMERGING AND DECLINING MARKETS 2015 TO 2016TOP DESTINATIONS FOR EUROPE TRAVELLERS 2015 TO 2016
Rank 2015 2016 y/y
1 Spain Spain -
2 Italy Italy -
3 Germany United States ↑
4 United States Germany ↓
5 France France -
6 United Kingdom United Kingdom -
7 Greece Greece -
8 Portugal Portugal -
9 Austria Thailand ↑
10 Thailand Austria ↓
11 Turkey Morocco ↑
12 Morocco Netherlands ↑
13 Netherlands Turkey ↓
14 Switzerland Switzerland -
15 Russia Canada ↑
16 Romania Romania -
17 Poland Ireland ↑
18 Canada Poland ↓
19 Ireland Sweden ↑
20 Sweden Croatia ↑
South Korea
Denmark
Canada
Portugal
Switzerland
Australia
Vietnam
Norway
Thailand
Mauritius
Croatia
Cuba
Philippines
Malaysia
South Africa
Tanzania
Indonesia
New Zealand
Iceland
Sri Lanka
Turkey
Egypt
Ecuador
Belgium
Albania
Russia
Ukraine
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Moldova
Argentina
Hong Kong
Romania
Italy
Tunisia
Poland
Lebanon
Czech Republic
Spain
Bulgaria79%
72%
71%
71%
63%
53%
48%
47%
46%
45%
45%
42%
37%
37%
37%
36%
33%
32%
31%
29%
9%
9%
7%
6%
6%
5%
5%
4%
4%
-1%
-1%
-1%
-5%
-6%
-7%
-9%
-16%
-16%
-18%
-24%
Top 20 Bottom 20

6. 6
Conclusion
The vast majority (93%) of European
travel occurs intra-regionally.
Yet, political and economic factors, as well as changing
tastes of Europeans all impact how they plan travel. For
example, even with the UK’s ‘Leave’ result on 23 June and
the falling value of the Pound, we have not seen a drastic
change in UK outbound travel intent. However, emerging
markets, like Iceland and their creative stopover campaigns,
are showing an increase in European travellers.
Armed with these insights, you can navigate changing travel
behaviours and plan your travel marketing campaigns with
greater efficiency and effectiveness.
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7. 7
Appendix
Country Trip Duration
Armenia 9.1
Netherlands 8.7
Russia 8.6
Germany 8.6
Belarus 8.6
Luxembourg 8.2
Serbia 8.2
Norway 8.1
Slovenia 8.1
Azerbaijan 8.0
Moldova 8.0
Ukraine 7.9
Belgium 7.9
Georgia 7.8
Finland 7.8
Czech Republic 7.8
France 7.8
Sweden 7.7
Denmark 7.6
Estonia 7.6
Kosovo 7.5
Austria 7.5
Switzerland 7.4
Ireland 7.1
Latvia 7.1
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
7.1
Country Lead Time
Ireland 87
United Kingdom 86
Iceland 86
Faroe Islands 84
Germany 80
Finland 78
Estonia 77
Netherlands 76
Norway 75
Latvia 75
Hungary 74
Malta 74
Belgium 73
Luxembourg 72
Czech Republic 71
Austria 71
Lithuania 70
Jersey 70
Poland 70
Slovenia 70
Denmark 69
Croatia 69
Switzerland 69
Cyprus 67
Isle of Man 67
France 67
Country Trip Duration
Bulgaria 7.0
United Kingdom 7.0
Albania 6.9
Lithuania 6.9
Hungary 6.9
Macedonia 6.9
Portugal 6.9
Poland 6.8
Croatia 6.5
Montenegro 6.5
Romania 6.5
Iceland 6.4
Italy 6.3
Spain 6.3
Malta 6.3
Cyprus 6.1
Gibraltar 5.8
Jersey 5.7
Slovakia 5.5
Greece 5.4
Faroe Islands 5.4
Isle of Man 5.2
Guernsey 4.7
Monaco 4.7
Country Lead Time
Portugal 67
Gibraltar 66
Spain 65
Sweden 64
Italy 64
Romania 64
Bulgaria 63
Guernsey 62
Russia 62
Slovakia 60
Greece 60
Serbia 58
Belarus 55
Monaco 54
Ukraine 53
Georgia 51
Moldova 50
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
50
Macedonia 50
Armenia 48
Montenegro 45
Albania 42
Azerbaijan 41
Kosovo 40
AVERAGE TRIP DURATION IN DAYS AVERAGE LEAD TIME IN DAYS

8. 8
Sojern is the travel industry’s leading performance marketing engine.
Through Sojern’s Traveller Platform and billions of traveller intent data
signals across online and mobile channels, we put more heads in beds,
travellers in seats, and tourists in towns for our clients worldwide.
www.sojern.com
Sojern’s reports are based on the rigorous analysis of more than a billion traveller intent data points, obtained through Sojern’s unique partnerships with some of the
world’s most renowned travel brands. The insights available through this analysis enable brands to deliver the right messages to the right traveller at the right time
through display, video, mobile, and social advertising. For more travel insights, see our resource center.